It’s Not Just IT Solutions, It’s IT Global Know-How: Logicalis

Logicalis is an international multi-skilled solution provider providing digital enablement services to help customers harness digital technology and innovative services to deliver powerful business outcomes.

Logicalis’ customers span industries and geographical regions; and its focus is to engage in the dynamics of its customers’ vertical markets; including financial services, TMT (telecommunications, media and technology), education, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing and professional services, and apply the skills of Logicalis’ 4,500 employees in modernizing key digital pillars; data centre and cloud services, security and network infrastructure, workspace communications and collaboration, data and information strategies, and IT operation modernization.

Logicalis is the advocates for its customers for some of the world’s leading technology companies including Cisco, HPE, IBM, CA Technologies, NetApp, Microsoft, Oracle, VMware, and ServiceNow.

The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of over $1.5 billion, from operations in Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa. It is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, with revenues of over $4 billion.

The Logicalis History                               

Headquartered in the UK, Logicalis Group’s origins go back to 1997 when Datatec acquired Logical Networks plc, a UK based networking integrator (a company that had been established since 1988). From 1997 to 2000, Datatec embarked on a globalization strategy, acquiring more than 20 IT integration and services companies across Europe, North and South America and Australasia.

In 2001, Logicalis Group, which is 100% owned by Datatec, became the formal statutory holding company of the Logicalis operating companies.

In 2003, Logicalis received an unsolicited offer from IBM for the Group's Australian and New Zealand businesses. The disposal was concluded in March 2004. Since then, Logicalis has continued to acquire companies throughout Europe, North and South America, and the Asia Pacific, focusing on IT integration solutions and network and enterprise systems.

Logicalis Group currently has over 4,000 employees worldwide providing services and solutions to almost 6,000 corporate and public sector customers.

CEO, Mark Rogers’ Take on the Company Vision:

“Our vision is simple – to make technology an asset for businesses, not a problem.

We believe in making our complex, fast-changing world a simpler, more inspiring place to live, work and grow. We see ourselves as the ‘architects of change’ and, like all good architects, we design a wide variety of projects.”

Solutions and Services

Networking

To compete and prosper in today’s marketplace every organization has to empower their people to collaborate more effectively. To achieve this you will need to provide instant and secure access to corporate networks, extend virtualization, and leverage cloud computing. These are not options - these are commercial imperatives.

Today, your wired and wireless enterprise networks need to be intelligent. Fortunately, advances in network technology offer an evolutionary path for forward-thinking IT departments to integrate intelligence into their network infrastructure. As a result, they will gain a technological and competitive lead within their sector.

Your Networking Solutions

Here are five key steps that will help boost your network’s IQ. It’s a useful checklist of opportunities to make all aspects of your network infrastructure more secure and efficient.

1. End-to-end Security Architectures
   • Identity-based Network Access Control services provide network-wide creation, distribution, and monitoring of security policies based on contextual knowledge. These include user authentication, device profiling, policy enforcement, posture assessment, and remediation
   • Universal access user clients facilitate network access, user authentication, remote VPN access and content filtering enforcement
2. Network awareness of media-rich applications
   • Deployment, optimization, monitoring, and troubleshooting of growing rich media applications on the network (i.e. video)
   • Intelligent network devices automatically identify applications and apply appropriate QoS. They intelligently optimize communications via the interaction of applications, such as web conferencing, with network devices
   • Integrated application tools on network devices allow simulation of interactive sessions to test network capacity (i.e., IP SLAs). They also provide a path and performance monitoring for live rich media sessions
   • Centralised network management tools allow operations staff to select the type of intelligent network to automatically prepare and provision for deployment
3. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
   • VDI facilitates desktop licensing, central desktop management from data centers, and reduction in energy consumption
   • Technology overlays improve performance and user experience for rich media applications (i.e., voice and video)
4. Network provisioning, management, and monitoring
   • Workflow-based tools enable zero-touch deployment of network infrastructure; wired, wireless, remote, PCs, laptops/desktops, tablets, and smartphones. This enables IT to focus on more strategic tasks like network planning and new solution deployment
5. Cloud computing consumption models (public, private, and hybrid)
   • Technologies that ensure greater security, performance, and availability

Greet the Chief

Mark Rogers, Chief Executive Officer: Mark Rogers joined Logicalis in 2003 as Finance Director for Logicalis UK, and in 2004 he became Chief Financial Officer, European Operations. Since March 2007, he has taken on the role of Chief Operating Officer for Logicalis Group and in March 2014, Mark was appointed President and COO of Logicalis Group. Mark became CEO for Logicalis Group with effect from 1st March 2015.

Mark has extensive experience in the technology and service sectors both in the UK and internationally. He spent 20 years at Racal Electronics/Thales of which 13 years were at Finance Director Level within divisions providing Managed Network Services, Telecoms, and Survey & Positioning Services. Whilst at Thales he was also Chairman of Citylink Telecommunications, a joint venture company which had secured a £1.2 billion, 20 year PFI contract with London Underground. Also, he has significant M&A experience including the sale of Racal Telecom to Global Crossing for £1 billion as well as experience in the acquisition and integration of smaller businesses.

He started his finance career with Revlon where he qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant.